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Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Prevalence and Variation of Developmental Screening and Surveillance in Early Childhood

QuestionWhat are the latest national estimates of standardized developmental screening and surveillance, as well as individual and state variation, that may identify opportunities for improvement?FindingsIn this cross-sectional analysis of the 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health, an estimated 30.4% of children 9 through 35 months of age received a parent-completed developmental screening and 37.1% received developmental surveillance from a health care professional in the past year. State-level differences far exceeded those by child and family characteristics, spanning 40 percentage points for screening (17.2% in Mississippi and 58.8% in Oregon) and surveillance (19.1% in Mississippi and 60.8% in Oregon).Both screening and surveillance varied substantially across states by more than 40 percentage points (Figure 1 and Figure 2). The prevalence of screening ranged from 17.2% in Mississippi to 58.8% in Oregon, corresponding to a rate ratio of 3.4. Similarly, developmental surveillance ranged from 19.1% in Mississippi to 60.8% in Oregon, corresponding to a rate ratio of 3.2. States with significantly lower rates of developmental screening than the nation overall included Kentucky (17.5%), New York (17.5%), and Florida (20.4%), while states with rates significantly exceeding the national rate included Oregon (58.8%), Colorado (50.2%), Minnesota (50.1%), North Carolina (47.6%), Alaska (46.8%), Montana (46.3%), Massachusetts (46.3%), and Maryland (43.0%). Read more here.